Forgeries in the Bible's New Testament?

And by god , it payed off .

Ehrman's written a lot of good stuff, and has pointed out in his books and lectures for decades that the Christian canon was assembled for essentially political reasons out of a much larger body of early Chrisitian literature. It's not news, and indeed this is understood by virtually all intellectual, rather than belief-based, scholars of religion. Much of the writing is pseudonymous, as was commonplace in those days. And, in addition to myth, metaphor, and hyperbole, there are in fact falsehoods concocted by early authors. A prime example is the so-called Gospel of John. To understand early Christian philosophy, it's necessary to know not only what the "church" put forth as it was becoming "corporatized" in first through the third centuries. The "non-canonical" writings - the book of Thomas, Judas, Mary Magdeline, and so forth - which have emerged from the places they were secreted upon the "corporate" Catholic church fathers decree that all non-canonical literature be destroyed. It's not news but Ehrman's stuff is really good reading.

It's also necessary to understand that early Christian philosophy was diametrically opposed to the politico-corporate mentality that runs the world to this day. In fact, the church fathers who constituted themselves as a ruling elite in the first through the third century "corporatized" the church in the worst sense of the word. In order to defuse the movement, Christianity was co-opted by the oligarchical plutocratic class and corrupted to serve the purposes of politicians and the mercantile/investor class; and, if you disagreed with them, they called you a heretic and murdered you by a most gruesome method - slowly burning to death at the stake. It's like "born-again" pro-Jesus George W. Bush lying the nation's way into a war that must kill innocent masses of humans, but which is applauded by the "Christian" right-wing.

We live in a sea of lies. We drink, breathe, and eat lies. It's the Capitalist way.

Of course there are lies, deletions, and complete fabrications in this book. It formed the basis of the rules and canons to control the people. Religion has always been a part of the church but it is by no means the central reason for the church's existence. The church is more of a political institution than a religious one. It was, at various times, either the supporter or detractor of the aristocracy; it being a ruling class in itself. Why else would it refer to it's followers as "Sheep"? The church is also a business in that it's priests made money by selling their interpretations of the holy writs to those who could not read or write, which was most of the population.

Controlling the people required that the propaganda be applicable to the lives of the people and their life situations. After all, it is easy to sell an idea if it is couched in terms appropriate for the times. The aristocracy, the papacy, and all the splinter organizations descended from the above, each contributed their own edits. And people are surprised when they hear that what they have been taught to accept as unquestionable turns out to be, in many cases, patently false.

So the next time someone asks you to put your hand on this book and swear to tell the whole truth, maybe you should ask if that book represents truth, and is that verifiable.

----------------------------------Mark 90-130 ad

Matthew 100-140 ad ------------------------------------- Luke 110 - 160 ad

-------------------------------------- John 140- 210 ad

Took a few theology classes and this is the chart we were given about when the gospels were probably written according to Real Historical Scholars of the bible.
Real Scholars have been able to guesstimate the dates according to events that were mentioned based on the records of the Roman Empire, who, if nothing else had very good bureaucrats who needed records for Everything.

All Fairy Tales are the same!

Doesn't surprise me one bit!

religion again a big dud....

All known refferances to women were removed.....In the Bible Mary Magdalaine was a whore......In the Koran she was intelligent and Jesus "RIGHT HAND" . I saw a program on the History Channel stating that there were quite a few women in the early scriptures.......They were removed. And Remember the Pope had a contract out on Martin Luther. Anyone that went agains the norm was a threat to the Catholic Church. If you cand find it.... The movie Luther was AWESOME!!!

I have followed Ehrman's work for years and will read this one also. He has long been advocating that the various books of the Bible were either not written by we thought they were, or were mistranslated, etc. But the use of the term "forged" raises new questions altogether.

Duh...

umm I think we were already clear that not everything in there is exactly what it says it is. Think of it this way, give a massive political organization complete control over a text that defines the morality of everyone under their control, and if they just tweaked this one little thing, they get more power, now you try to tell me whats in there is word for word.

Let's start with the part where the Roman Emperor orders everyone in the Empire to travel to their ancestral homes in order to fill out a government form. How much sense does THAT make?

really???

Back then it was common for a writer to atribute authorship of a work to one of the characters within it.

Imagine if JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books under the pseudonym "Hermione Granger".

As a result, we can never know who wrote them.

Plus, they were all written about 90 years after Jesus died.

That alone shows how unlikely it is that they were written by anyone who met Jesus.

And considering how important Jesus said he was, and how important his apostles believed him to be, it is nonsensical that none of them ever wrote anything down.

Jesus himself was supposedly a Rabbi- thus he knew how to read and write, but he never wrote anything down.

And THAT makes it unlikely that Jesus ever existed- or if he did, he was just no where near as important as he became when his legend grew.

Why is anyone surprised by the news that Simon, called "Peter" wrote nothing. How many fishermen were literate in the time of Jesus? Keep seeking, Pilgrims, you will find more assaults on reason to ponder.

No Way!!!! Really???